On Friday, Governor Ron DeSantis reportedly signed a death warrant for an individual convicted of the heinous murder of a couple at a sod farm in Charlotte County in 1997.
James D. Ford, 64, is slated for execution on February 13 at Florida State Prison for the murders of Greg and Kimberly Malnory.
This would be Florida’s inaugural execution of the year, following one inmate’s execution in 2024.
On Friday, the Florida Supreme Court established a timeline for a possible legal dispute against the execution’s implementation. Both state and federal courts dismissed Ford’s prior appeals.
The Florida Supreme Court stated that Ford collaborated with Greg Malnory at South Florida Sod Farm in Charlotte County. Ford arranged to go fishing on a Sunday with the couple at the secluded sod farm.
On April 7, 1997, another employee uncovered what the Supreme Court characterized as a “gruesome discovery.”
The court’s 2001 ruling affirming Ford’s convictions and death sentences stated that Greg Malnory was shot in the head, assaulted, and had his throat cut, while Kimberly Malnory was raped, assaulted, and shot.
The couple had a 22-month-old girl who was abandoned in a car seat in their pickup truck for over 18 hours following the killings, according to the opinion.
Ford was adjudicated guilty in 1999 and was sentenced to death twice. The Ford death warrant and associated documents were published on the Supreme Court website on Friday.
Ford would be killed by lethal injection less than six months after convict Loran Cole was executed on August 29 for the 1994 murder of Florida State University student John Edwards, who was camping in the Ocala National Forest.
Florida did not execute any inmates in 2020, 2021, and 2022, but executed six individuals in 2023.
Michael Duane Zack was executed for a 1996 murder in Escambia County; James Phillip Barnes for the 1988 murder of a woman in her Melbourne condominium; Duane Owen for the 1984 murder of a woman in Palm Beach County; Darryl Barwick for the 1986 murder of a woman in her Panama City apartment; Louis Gaskin for the 1989 murders of a couple in Flagler County; and Donald David Dillbeck for the 1990 murder of a woman during a carjacking in a Tallahassee mall parking lot.
[READ MORE: Ted Cruz Backs Trump’s Plans to Take Over Greenland and the Panama Canal]
